The prematch look ahead of this evening's game with Wolves
Listen to full match commentary of the match on ShrewsPlayer
Marcus Braddock previews the game
Tonight's home game against Wolves is the last of our home pre-season games, we do have an away game at Worcester for the devout but for home boys (and girls) like me, this is it before the season starts. Personally I can’t wait for the new season to begin; we have an exciting season ahead and some teams we haven't played in a good number of years.
Wolverhampton Wanderers
I'm sure we all remember Wolves difficult season last term as they battled against relegation from the Premier league after 3 seasons. Things have changed since the end of the season with Stale Stolbakken replacing Terry Connor in the manager’s seat after a spell with FC Koln. Stolbakken has made some moves in the transfer market since he arrived in the post in June with forward Frank Nouble moving from West Ham and Icelandic forward Björn Bergmann Sigurðarson arriving from Lillestrom.
Them
So far this pre-season, Wolves have played Bray Wanderers away winning won 5-1 and Walsall away, which Wanderers won 3-0.
Us
If you have been following closely you will know that we have won, lost and drawn in our pre season games so far. Against Evesham we started with a 0-0 draw away but lost 3-1 to Birmingham in our first home friendly with Morgan being our scorer. On Saturday we had a decent result against Leicester with a 2-0 win with goals from Marvin Morgan and Terry Gornell.
Performers
Wolves have signed two forwards this close season who will be looking to impress in pre-season. 21 year old Björn Bergmann Sigurðarson made the switch to Wolves for a rumoured £2.4 million from Lillestrom where he made 70 appearances and scored 17 goals. Frank Nouble came in from West Ham who he signed for from Chelsea in 2009. Frank has only made 19 appearances for West Ham but spent plenty of time on loan, with his most successful loan spell being with Gillingham last season where he scored 6 goals in 15 games. Nouble has already opened his account for wolves with a goal in each of their pre-season games.
Referee
Rob Lewis from Meole Brace.
Games last season: 26
Yellow cards: 73
Red cards: 4
Prediction
Another difficult one to call, just like our last 3 pre-season games, all of which I have totally failed to get even a result right. Wolves have been a very decent side over the last decade and to me, look like one of those teams that are too good for the Championship but struggle at times in the top flight. Their new manager has a decent pedigree in his home country Norway and also in Denmark, and although it didn't go his way last season at Koln, looks a safe pair of hands. At the time of writing we haven't signed anyone new this week so it’s safe to say that we're almost ready for the new season. So an interesting game with a very decent opponent should ensue and although the result is relatively unimportant, we should see some decent performances with players looking to impress ahead of the new season. I'll pluck another arbitrary and probably incorrect couple of numbers from the air above my desk and go for a 3-2 win for Shrewsbury Town!
COYB
Marcus Braddock
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ShrewsWeb spoke to Graham Turner to get his thought's ahead of the game
On the Leicester game...
A lot of good aspects game from the game, a lot of positives. I thought we worked harder; we looked very much more organised as a defensive unit than we did the previous Tuesday, which I would expect. One of the things we concentrated on after the Birmingham game and I thought the players applied themselves well to it. In the main we contained Leicester very well and always looked dangerous when we had the ball. We passed it quite well, there is always that danger when you work on the defending side of your game, that players forget to pass the ball or forget to move to receive the ball, but I think both forms of our play were quite good on Saturday. It was encouraging and that's all, it's a pre-season game but there were a lot of positives and for the forthcoming season it was encouraging.
On Wolves...
It's another practice match; I'd like to see a slight improvement again over the Leicester performance. As players get a little bit fitter, a little bit sharper, you're looking for an improvement in each of the games. Really, you look at this, it's my opportunity to finally look at the individual players, and think they have done through pre-season to earn a place in the side. The side itself is formulating in my mind of what the starting line up might be at Leeds.
Watch Graham Turner's prematch thoughts on ShrewsPlayer